UBER and NASA to develop Flying Taxis by 2020

Los Angels (USA): Uber signed a deal with NASA to help develop traffic systems for its flying car project which it hopes to start testing in 2020.

Uber is now making efforts to make the flying car project a reality. Uber said at the Web Summit tech conference in Lisbon that it signed a Space Act Agreement with NASA for the development of “unmanned traffic management.” This is NASA’s push to figure out how unmanned aerial systems (UAS), such as drones that fly at a low altitude, can operate safely. NASA has used such contracts to develop rockets since the late 1950s.

“There is a reality that Uber has grown up a lot as a company,” Holden said in an interview ahead of his speech. “We are now a major company on the world stage and you can’t do things the same way where you are a large-scale, global company that you can do when you are a small, scrappy startup.”

Uber wants to make vertical take-off and landing vehicles. That will allow their flying cars to take off and land vertically. They will fly at a low altitude.

NASA said in a statement it had signed a generic agreement in January with Uber that enables the company to join a variety of industry partners working with NASA to develop a range of driverless air traffic management systems.

That deal calls for Uber to be involved during phase 4 of this work, which is scheduled to begin in March 2019, NASA said.

Phase 1, completed in 2015, involved field tests and ongoing testing at a U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) site for drones used in agriculture, fire-fighting and pipeline monitoring, NASA has said. Phase 2 in 2016 considered long distance uses in sparsely populated regions, while Phase 3 in 2018 will test services over moderately populated areas, leading to Phase 4 testing in high-density urban areas in 2019.

An UberAir journey between Los Angeles’ airport and the Staples Center arena, for example, would take 27 minutes — three times less time than the same journey by car.

A promotional video illustrated the app would work in a similar way to the current set-up for ordering a car ride.

But the planned electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles (eVTOLS) “differ from helicopters in that they are orders of magnitude quieter, safer, more affordable, and more environmentally-friendly,” the company said, adding that journeys will be priced competitively with a standard Uber trip.

The vehicles will take off, land and recharge upon a network of “vertiports” installed on top of parking garages, on existing helipads or on unused land around road interchanges.

Deloitte’s Pascal Pincemin said at the Paris Air Show flying taxis will not be commonplace until 2050, as their reliability will need to be established first.